8 Online Reputation Mistakes Your Business Must Avoid

What do people think of your company?

Your reputation makes a massive impact on consumers’ decision to buy from you. A staggering 67.7 percent of purchasing choices are affected by online reviews, and you stand to lose more than 20 percent of business if prospects come across negative coverage of your brand on the first results page.

Considering the sheer range of options customers have online, a bad reputation can make all the difference between securing and losing a conversion. If your business seems too much of a risk, buyers will just purchase from one of your competitors instead.

You have to protect your online reputation from bad reviews, poor feedback and anything else that could damage it. Join Reputation Mart’s experts as we explore the 8 online reputation mistakes your business must avoid … 

1. Failing to Monitor your Reputation

Maybe you’re just not that interested in going online. Perhaps the prospect of Googling your own business and trawling review sites makes you want to gag.

Whatever the reason, your online reputation could end up getting wildly out of control if you fail to keep an eye on it. Even if people are leaving good reviews or sharing positive posts about you on their social accounts, they might not be getting full exposure without you sharing them.

Just because you don’t research your company doesn’t mean others won’t be.Fake accounts may be set up on social media too, possibly causing further damage.

2. Not Interacting with the Online Community

People will leave good reviews. People will leave bad reviews.

It’s vital to respond to as many of both as you can, regardless of their content. Apologize for poor service, thank customers for their kind words and offer to make things right if need be.

Interacting with people who have taken the time to post about your business will impact other customers’ views. Seeing how well you respond to the worst complaints can show you care about buyers’ experience and respect their opinion.

Simply leaving bad responses untouched and pretending they don’t exist will only do more harm. When responding to negative feedback or reviews, always be professional and courteous: never engage in a war of words.

3. Creating Fake Reviews

Always, always avoid the temptation to write fake reviews. Creating them yourself or asking employees, friends or even family to do so is a big mistake.

Why? Because if someone finds out, you could harm your reputation more than a single bad review ever would. Consumers will wonder why you have to cheat to make your brand appear better, and view you as being untrustworthy.

After all, if you’re willing to lie about online feedback what else would you lie about?

Prospective buyers will have more faith in you if they see you handling negative reviews in a professional manner than if they see lots of feedback sharing too many similarities to be coincidental.

4. Being Unsociable

Social media has a big impact on the business-consumer relationship. People will complain to companies directly on Facebook and Twitter, share good experiences with their friends and ask questions about products. It’s a key step in the research process.

Being active on social media and engaging with your customers is key to maintaining your online reputation. Users expect fast responses and transparency, whether they have made a complaint or thanked the brand for excellent service.

Avoiding social media is no way to try to minimize the harm of potential negative posts. People will still discuss you even if you have no account.

5. Never Showing your Human Side

Customers will feel a stronger bond with your business if you’re willing to show your unique, human side.

If you make a mistake, admit to it. Be sincere. Explain to your customers how and why it happened, and discuss what you plan to do to put it right.

Don’t issue a bland press release that skirts responsibility and leaves buyers cold. Just hold your hands up and present your solution. Prospects may be more forgiving if they see you’re approaching a situation as a group of people rather than as a faceless enterprise.

6. Ignoring the Power of Content

Good content is essential to keep your reputation in good shape. Well-written blogs and articles offering readers value will help you become recognized as a reliable brand with lots to say. This adds credibility to your business and can establish you as a thought-leader, though this may be easier in some sectors than others.

The better your content, the more likely it is to be shared and garner extra attention. Failing to create new content doesn’t just make you look unprofessional, it’s not great for your SEO campaign either. 

7. Getting Complacent

You’ve built a good reputation. You’ve published a string of great content that attracts thousands of views. You’ve amassed more positive feedback than you can keep track of.

So, why not take your eye off your online reputation for a while and focus on other areas of running your business instead?

Don’t get complacent. If you stop responding to social posts and reviews, customers could lose their respect for you and assume you no longer care about their views. Never let success distract you from maintaining good relationships with customers.

Remember: they’re what keeps you in business, no matter how big your brand becomes.

8. Having No Reputation Management in Place

Every business should invest in solid reputation management. You have to know what people are saying about your company, identify the common complaints and find ways to put things right.

You need to know how you will respond to feedback and use it to help your business grow. This must be put together with care — just dashing off a comment at the end of an occasional review isn’t enough.

Our team of experts can help you stay on top of your online reputation, ensure brand consistency and avoid harmful mistakes. Want to learn more about our Online Reputation Management services? Just get in touch! 

10 Social Media Tips for Small Businesses

Believe it or not, more than 3 billion people across the globe use social media.

With such a vast audience, small businesses can take advantage of social media to really build their brand and expand their reach. However, actually knowing how to use it properly is critical — or else you could be wasting your time altogether.

Below, Reputation Mart’s social media experts have put together some pro tips to help you get started.

#1. Study your strongest competitors

What are your leading competitors doing on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram? How are they engaging their audience and driving traffic to their site(s)?

Taking inspiration from your biggest rivals in your niche will help you get a concrete idea of what to do and what not to do. For example, what kind of articles, blog posts, news stories and videos do they tend to share? Which generate the highest number of shares and comments?

Take notes and try to emulate the best examples in your own social media campaign.

#2. Know your limits

There are more social networks out there than you can realistically handle, unless you’re a global giant with a huge team dedicated to running your accounts. Even then, being part of more than a few may not be necessary.

For small businesses, knowing your limits is vital. Start with just a couple of social accounts and take the time to build these up. Focus on engaging users and establishing a solid group of followers. Otherwise, if you take on too many networks and try to maintain an active presence on all, you’ll spread yourself too thin.

#3. Research your target audience

Do you know where your ideal customers are likely to be hanging out online? Are your buyers more prone to spending hours scrolling through their Facebook feeds or is SnapChat more their thing?

Invest in researching the social habits of your target audience and channel your resources into the most relevant network. This makes it slightly easier to reach prospects most likely to convert, rather than trying to appeal to those who might be elsewhere.

#4. Focus on entertainment rather than constant marketing

Of course, you want to promote your small business and build your brand. But if you keep filling feeds with an endless slew of promotional materials, people will lose interest — fast.

You have to pay attention to the kind of content your target audience responds to and try to incorporate this into your strategy. People use social media to be entertained and perhaps learn more about the world, rather than seeing the same thinly-veiled ads again and again.

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#5. Embrace the power of visuals

Posts containing images are more likely to get shared on social media. Text-heavy posts are less engaging and easier to scroll past, while visuals make a bigger immediate impact.

Make sure you use dynamic images as often as possible and try to keep them original. People are used to seeing the same stock photography again and again, so if you need to rely on them, at least choose ones that are less obvious. There’s plenty of beautiful stock images out there.

When posting videos, try to keep them as short as possible. The longer they are, the harder it is to sustain viewer interest.

#6. Be responsive on all types of engagement

It’s essential that you post responses to people’s comments or mentions. If you let both good and bad interactions with your brand go neglected for too long, you could end up damaging your reputation.

Whether it’s a question, a positive comment or a complaint, respond to it as soon as you can. Even if you don’t have time to get back to all users posting positive things, simply ‘liking’ or ‘favoriting’ their comment can be enough. They’ll appreciate that you’ve at least acknowledged them.

#7. Run competitions and polls

Hosting competitions and polls is a terrific way to encourage more engagement. Make the entry criteria simple and offer a tantalizing prize, whether it’s a bundle of free products from your brand or a discount with an affiliate.

Many competitions on Facebook and Twitter ask entrants to like and / or share the post, along with placing a comment. This is a simple, effective way to get your posts appearing on more feeds, potentially reaching prospects who wouldn’t see your content otherwise.

#8. Boost engagement and reach with hashtags

The humble hashtag has blossomed into a key player on social networks, primarily Twitter.

Whether hashtags are used in games (such as ‘changing a movie title with one letter’) or to promote worthy causes, they’re incredibly effective tools. You have to make sure you keep them concise, though, as longer ones are harder to read.

Avoid using too many in a single post too — this can look a little desperate or suggest you’re not really sure what you’re doing.

#9. Get involved with trends and show a sense of humor

Don’t be afraid to show your human side on social media. Yes, you’re running a business and have to remain professional in your interactions with followers, but people want companies to be more transparent today.

Get involved with trends and be willing to create posts designed to do little more than raise a smile. You just need to make sure anything you post is appropriate and unlikely to cause offence.

#10. Stay active on all fronts

Part of the reason small businesses have to keep their number of social media accounts low is that it’s much easier to stay active.

Social accounts that have been left untouched for weeks, months or years never look good to customers, especially if they want to reach out to you. Try to stay as visible on your priority networks as possible.

Any small business can take inspiration from these pro tips, but Reputation Mart’s experts will help you take it much, much further. We’ll boost your small business’s visibility and engagement to grow your audience, no matter what your niche.

Want to learn more? Just get in touch!

Top 5 Benefits of Social Selling

Why Does my Company Need a Local Presence in Google My Business?

Every business has to continually take advantage of the latest marketing opportunities, and if you’re not, you could be missing out on valuable business.

Google My Business is one of the simplest options available if you want to boost your website’s visibility on Google’s search engine results pages, but too many companies still aren’t using it.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of using Google My Business for your enterprise, and why you should always keep your eye on your major competition.

Google My Business: The Basics

In essence, Google My Business is a listings service for local companies of all sizes. You can find listings for all types of business, on mobile and desktop, using voice or text-based searches.

For example, if you’re looking for fast food restaurants you could expect to see global giants like Burger King and McDonald’s alongside independent, local establishments too.

Each company can benefit from appearing on Google My Business. Your brand will be displayed in searches of different kinds, though the most common one will be users running a search based on your name.

Google My Business displays key information on businesses that would otherwise be available on the website, but within the search engine itself. Companies using the service properly will be able to present prospects with their address, opening hours, contact number and a selection of images. The location on a Google Map can accompany all of this too.

The benefits of Google My Business

The Google My Business listings are ideal for a number of reasons.

Immediacy

One key benefit is immediacy: if someone has recommended your establishment to a friend, they will then be able to run a quick search to get all the details they need.

If they want to visit on their lunch break, they can see how close the business is and decide whether to go then or wait until they have more time. The details on Google My Business save searchers time and give them a flavor of your company before they even arrive at your website or at your door.

However, they will likely still click through to the full site to see pictures, view menus, brochures, product catalogs, and more if your listing catches their attention.

You will have to complete the Google My Business profile for your company in full, to ensure all key data appears in your listing. Verify your location(s) too, so they are more likely to appear on maps and searches and keep your opening hours accurate.

High placement

Prospects will be able to find your Google My Business listing if they look for local companies by business type too.

Searching for ‘bars in Chicago’, for example, will present you with three main listings (sometimes known as the ‘three pack’) which are considered the most relevant. Take a look below to see for yourself.

A business listing can help your brand stand out from competitors and make it much easier for potential customers to find you. However, while Google My Listings results will be displayed for searches by brand name, they may not for searches by business type.

In this case, your visibility will be based on how many businesses are competing for prominence in the local area, as well as review scores. Google will also judge your business’s placement according to how relevant it is to users’ searches, the distance from a location term in the search, and your prominence.

The more well-known your brand is, the higher it’s likely to appear in Google My Business listings. This applies to online and offline brands alike. Google will base prominence on the amount of information on the business it can pull from online resources like articles and directories.

Reviews are an important part of boosting your Google My Business listing’s visibility. Positive reviews written by satisfied customers can make your company more likely to rank and provide prospects with reliable information on whether your business is right for them.

Encourage customers to leave their own reviews by creating a link on your site or social media, and they may actually help you out.

You can add Google Posts too, which appear on search pages and maps. These allow you extra room in which to promote special deals, newsletters, news, and more. Posts are intended to make your website / business more attractive and offer extra value.

Watching your Competitors

When you create your own Google My Business listing, take a look at your competitors’.

This includes those in your local area and around the world, across online and offline sectors. Your bigger competitors should be your main focus, particularly those which are leading the market.

Take a look at the review scores, images, and additional elements they include in their listings. Could you learn anything from them? Are your own images of an equal standard? Do they include Google Posts, and if so, how do they make you want to click through to their site?

You may not be able to compete with your leading rivals, especially if they have decades worth of experience and reputation-building than you do. However, following their lead can help you improve your Google My Business listing in years to come.

At Reputation Mart, we can help your business reach a wider audience, maintain your reputation, run your social media marketing, and deliver outstanding PPC services. Want to know more? Give us a call!

12 Benefits of PPC for Your Business

Building your brand’s online visibility is critical to achieve long-term success, but today’s market is increasingly competitive. 

Depending on the sector in which you operate, you could be just one of hundreds of businesses vying for consumers’ money. Online reviews, email marketing and social media marketing are all effective ways to widen your reach, but what about PPC?

PPC is key. Every business of every size must incorporate paid advertising into its marketing strategy.

Why?

Here are 12 benefits of PPC …

#1: Reaching your Audience is Easier

When setting up and managing your PPC campaign, an extensive range of targeting options helps you reach the right audience.

You can hone your paid ads to appear according to various factors, such as location, device, date, and keywords (both positive and negative). This ensures you’re spending your money on the most suitable searchers, rather than paying to target everyone.

#2: Get Quick Results

You can start using PPC ads right away. Even if you have only just launched your website (or even your entire business), you can dive into paid search marketing immediately.

It’s vital to spend time refining your keywords and targeting first, but once you’re set up you can start competing for clicks fast.

#3: Suitable for all Budgets

PPC can work for any business on any budget. Companies with big money to invest may be able to go after the most competitive search terms and cover more bases, but even startups with almost no marketing budget can get results.

You choose the amount you pay for clicks, which makes staying within your limits much easier.

#4: You can Measure your Success

PPC is measurable, thanks to the wealth of analytical data platforms provide. You can monitor which of your ads attract the most clicks, which keywords are most effective, and which choices offer the strongest ROI.

Tracking your performance is essential to identify potential flaws and find new ways to improve.

#5: PPC ads put you at the top of the Page

This is simple but true: paid ads place your brand at the top of the results page. This elevates you above your competitors below and means you’re more likely to attract clicks, as people place trust in those higher up the page.

If you have site extensions and a click-to-call option in your ads, you’re even more appealing to searchers looking for fast results.

#6: Paid ads are Independent of Algorithm Changes

Whenever Google updates its algorithm, your placement in search engine result pages can change (often without you realizing why, without in-depth research).

Fortunately, PPC ads exist outside of these changes. If you keep paying for your placements, consumers will keep seeing them.

#7: You can test Different Combinations Easily

A/B testing is a common practice in the world of online marketing, and PPC ads offer an easy way to experiment.

Perhaps you have two conflicting ideas for an ad, but don’t know which one to go with. You can create both and run them for a short period of time (two or three weeks, say), before examining the results.

The ad with the strongest Click Through Rate (or CTR) will be the most effective of the two.

You can then use the positive response to the style and tone of that ad to inform the rest of your marketing materials, giving you valuable inspiration for emails, social media posts etc.

#8: PPC ads Build Brand Recognition

Consumers who search for the same products or services on a regular basis will likely see your ads again and again.

Even if they choose not to click on any of your paid ads, they will still come to recognize your business name and remember you in the future. As a result, they may start to place trust in you, and could eventually visit you through your website rather than a paid ad.

This is true of paid ads on social media networks too: even if they keep scrolling, a well-presented ad can catch their eye and ensure future encounters with your business start off on a positive note.

#9: PPC Helps you Compete with Bigger Rivals

PPC is available to everyone, and the biggest competitors you face with be using it too. Their branding will carry a lot of authority and trust, giving them an immediate advantage over you.

However, you can try targeting less-popular keywords that are still relevant to your target audience, particularly those that your competitors might not consider. Being the underdog gives you a chance to be more creative and think outside the proverbial box.

With paid ads, you might not be able to pay the same as larger rivals, but you can still share the top of the page with them. It makes the playing field a little more fair.

#10: You Only pay for Interactions

You don’t have to pay to just have your ads sitting on a results page: only whenever someone clicks on them.

This is a stark contrast to more static advertising methods (such as placing an ad in a newspaper or on a billboard) in which you have to pay the costs even if they don’t bring anyone new to your brand.

#11: PPC Helps you Attract Local Buyers

Research from Google shows that three in four peoplewho find valuable information on local businesses in search results are more likely to actually visit them.

If you target areas local to your business in your PPC ads, you can give them valuable information such as opening hours and links to popular product lines. This may sway their decision to shop with you.

#12: PPC is Accessible

PPC is accessible to all businesses, even those which are new to digital marketing. Choosing keywords and creating ads is fairly straightforward, with a little help from an experienced expert.

This makes it much easier to actually have input into your ads and the message you put out for consumers, and helps you stay in control. You can see what works and what doesn’t courtesy of reporting tools and have your say in the which changes are made.

At Reputation Mart, our expert team can create a bespoke PPC campaign for your business, enhancing your online visibility and helping you reach a wider audience. Why not give us a callto discuss your options?

How can You Use Customer Reviews to Drive Sales?

Believe it or not, 85 percent of consumers tend to put as much trust in online reviews as they do personal recommendations.

Furthermore, 68 percent left a business review when prompted.

This demonstrates not just the importance of online reviews, but people’s willingness to leave them.

Despite this, though, some businesses don’t give online reviews the recognition and credit they deserve. They believe reviews are little more than a potential hazard to their reputation, as no company can please all of the people all of the time.

That’s technically true: negative reviews are inevitable, however rare.

Rather than being a hindrance, though, online reviews can be a major help to your brand, actually driving sales instead of reducing them.

Let’s take a closer look.

Building Your Brand, Building Trust

Gathering customer reviews can help to build your brand’s reputation to great effect.

When prospective buyers start looking into your business’s products and quality of service, having access to a large collection of reviews from previous customers can help them to gain a comprehensive insight they won’t find anywhere else.

They might be able to browse your website and find information on your company history, your own promotional copy, and your various products. However, only reviews can provide them with an unbiased idea of your brand’s performance.

Making that first purchase with a business they haven’t used before can be intimidating for consumers, especially if large amounts of money are involved. Scanning other buyers’ experiences with your brand can give them the confidence they need to spend, more so than your own marketing efforts.

As the stat at the start of this piece shows, buyers put a lot of faith in the feedback other consumers provide. By encouraging customers to leave reviews at dedicated sites and / or your own website, you are giving future buyers the chance to make an informed choice.

If they see a number of other people are pleased with their purchase, they are more likely to buy.

Your Responses Show You Care

Bad reviews vary wildly in tone and coherence.

We’ve all read feedback that makes little sense and appears to have been written by someone with a chip on their shoulder about something else beyond the products or services.

On the other hand, some bad reviews are well-written and cover fair grievances. For example, a customer may supply negative feedback because their item (let’s say a smartphone) was delivered in damaged packaging, or because it didn’t work as advertised.

You can’t stop people from writing bad reviews about your brand, but there’s no need to: they provide you with an opportunity to demonstrate how much you care about your buyers’ satisfaction and your business’s reputation.

Prospective customers browsing previous feedback and seeing negative reviews can feel put off, but a well-written, well-reasoned response from your brand has the power to turn one buyer’s complaint on its head.

If one customer complains that your smartphone (to return to the earlier example) failed to operate as it should have, you can take this chance to address the issue. Was it a manufacturing fault, and can it be returned to be repaired? Are they simply not using the handset the right way?

Offering to help demonstrates your business’s willingness to put things right. Even if your company has a global customer-base and the loss of one buyer means little in the long-term, you need to recognize that this really does matter to the consumer – which means it should matter to you too.

If you can’t solve a problem through a repair or replacement, offer to fix things in another way. Can you provide a discount in the future? Can you offer them a sincere apology and make sure they understand how committed you are to putting things right?

Prospective buyers reading this will likely have more faith in your brand, but don’t just focus on the negative reviews either. Offer a brief ‘thank you’ to the good ones too, and explain how you appreciate their custom.

Add Fresh Content for Better Rankings and Visibility

Publishing new content on your website, blog, and social channels on a regular basis can help to boost your rankings and drive fresh traffic to your site.

Crawlers like to see websites staying current. It shows that your brand is relevant and offering consistent value to searchers. More than this, though, fresh reviews are better for your reputation, and are more likely to encourage prospective customers into making that first purchase.

If prospects can only see reviews of your brand from around two years ago, how can they trust that your quality of service hasn’t declined since then? How can they decide whether you’re still reputable or not?

Keep requesting that customers leave feedback, good and bad. Don’t let them dry up and lose their relevancy.

Share Reviews Across Social Media

Sharing positive reviews about your business across social media can help to attract new prospects and drive traffic to your site.

Show your followers how satisfied previous customers are and highlight the products / services they received. Perhaps turn it into a brief case study, touching on why they wanted the goods in the first place, how you helped, and what solution your service brought.

Did they buy a pair of your running shoes for a fundraising marathon? Did they need to buy your computers for their business, and are now up and running thanks to you?

Focus on covering the customer’s journey in a short, simple social media post to drive prospects to your site. Even if they don’t click, they may well remember your brand in the future when they need the products you provide.

Online reviews can be a big help to your reputation and managing this is critical to your success. Have you found positive results from gathering customer reviews and responding to them?

How Social Media Impacts Your Online Reputation

Social media matters. Even if you try to avoid it in your personal life, your business must be represented on the major social networks.

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other networks have billions of users across the globe. Consumers of all ages and demographics use them on a daily basis, and countless businesses are actively engaging with them through text, images, and video.

If you aren’t, you’re falling behind, and your reputation may be suffering.

So just how does social media impact your online reputation, and how can you use it to your advantage?

Be Inspired to Be Better

Word of bad behavior or gaffs on social networks carry real weight with consumers and can bring negative attention to your brand within hours.

For example, United Airlines made the news in 2017 when a paying customer was dragged off one of their planes because it had been overbooked. The violent video went viral, and the situation only worsened when the CEO was found to have little grasp of the incident’s horror.

In a case like this, social media showed the world a glimpse of United Airlines’ corporate attitude and values that was truly ugly, and people voiced their disgust by the thousand. It was inevitable that someone would record the incident on their smartphone and share it with others, but United Airlines did little to ease people’s fury.

Social media should make you more aware than ever that everyone has a voice today. One consumer who experiences appalling service (or flat-out indecency, as with United Airlines) now has the power to tell millions of others across the globe to boycott the business in question.

How can you avoid such extreme repercussions? Concentrate on making sure your company’s protocols, processes, and training allows no room for incendiary behavior. At the least, you reduce the risk of damaging your own reputation. At the most, you will help it get better and better.

Also, social media results tend to appear high on SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). Any results carrying negative information on your brand will be eased lower and lower down the page, reducing the risk of consumers seeing bad reviews before visiting your warm, welcoming social accounts.

Of course, as we established above, bad customer experiences can find their way onto social networks and catch fire quickly. Your page may be bombarded with questions and demands for a response if your business acts in a way it shouldn’t – visitors will encounter this and may form an unfair opinion.

Keep Up to Date with Your Reputation

Another perk of social media is that it lets you monitor what people are saying about your business.

You may not be able to track every comment on every network, but you can still see enough to gauge public opinion. It’s vital to respond to people as and when you can, to help manage your reputation.

Nothing makes a business appear unprofessional and uncaring than a string of unanswered Tweets or Facebook posts on their page. Consumers lodging complaints, asking about upcoming products, demanding information on late deliveries, and generally sounding off can be enough to paint quite the unattractive picture of a business within seconds.

You need to stay on top of your social accounts as best you can and engage with followers whenever possible. Even if they are saying something negative, your response can prove essential in winning them over. You need a strategy in place to handle comments and feedback, no matter the language used, no matter how angry the writer obviously is.

Allowing yourself or anyone else from your company to respond without thinking, based on emotion rather than good business management, can be a terrible mistake. Even if you cannot think of a suitable way to address it immediately, it may be best to leave the comment without a response for a day or so – this would be far less harmful than an enraged rant.

We can help you setup the right tools to monitor mentions of your brand, and let you know whenever your brand is mentioned on social sites, forums, news pages, and more.

Be Positive

Following on from responding to negative comments and feedback, you need to interact with people writing positive things too.

Saying thank you, sharing their kind words, or simply replying with a sweet emoticon can all show your business in a good light. It proves that you listen to what people have to say and value their input or custom.

Still, a positive, well-written, contemplative response to a criticism can bring good attention to your brand out of bad, too. It’s vital to be apologetic and address how your business will attempt to fix the problem caused.

You need to remember that other people will see any interaction you have on social media (unless it’s through direct messages), and even simple but positive comments can boost users’ opinion of your business. They may take a look at your account to investigate your products or services, and possibly follow through to your site.

Another key factor to consider is the tone of voice you use, and how engaging it is for your followers. You need to show consistency in your language and style from one post to the next, otherwise people may be confused. Social media can help you cultivate a strong brand personality and boost your appeal to your target demographic, so use whichever tone best suits your market.

Never underestimate the power of social media as a business tool, no matter how big or small your company is. Startups with one employee can build a wider audience through a well-managed social account, while the biggest corporations can be dealt major blows by their poor choices.

Call us today and we will help you create a social media strategy that incorporates the points discussed above, and you can help to make sure your online reputation remains strong for years to come.

The True Power of Online Reviews

Today, every consumer has a voice. You have the power to share your own positive or negative experience of a specific product, service, or brand with the entire world.

88 percent of buyers trust online reviews just as much as recommendations from people they know. This is just one of the major cultural changes the internet has created: in the past, you only had word of mouth or a printed review to go on. Failing that, you simply had to take a punt and hope for the best.

Today, it’s a whole new world. You can find reviews of almost any restaurant, store, bar, club, independent retailer, or global corporation written by real customers. Search engines, directory websites (Yelp), social media, specialist sites (TripAdvisor), and others all host thousands of reviews to help guide buyers’ decisions.

How powerful are online reviews, and why?

Attracting New Customers

A kind word goes a long way. 72 percent of consumers say positive reviews make them trust a company more, while just 18 percent said the same reviews make no difference to their buying decisions.

These statistics suggest you have more chance of attracting new customers by promoting good reviews, so take the time to share them on your website and social media. These will give an invaluable insight into the level of service prospects can expect to enjoy, and build a positive image of your company overall.

You should provide facilities on your website and social media for customers to write reviews direct, rather than having to go to external sites (though this can still be helpful).

Boosting Your Rankings

Giving customers the opportunity to write reviews on your website may improve your organic rankings.

At the most basic level, reviews add fresh content to your site, especially if you have enough customers for new reviews to appear on a regular basis. For local businesses, a strong body of reviews can cause a star rating to appear in search results when users Google you. All you need to do is generate at least five reviews on Google+ Local.

Positive reviews will give your local business an impressive score, which can give you an edge over competitors that are newer or have less stars to their name.

Painting a Broad Picture of Your Brand

Customer reviews can cover different areas of your business respectively, or overall. For example, one buyer may simply review the product they bought from you, which is especially beneficial if it’s unique to your brand.

Alternatively, another customer could leave a review praising your entire service, from the easy checkout process on your site to the fast delivery and strong packaging. These might be areas you fail to actually promote, but potential buyers may well be curious about. Smaller elements all add up to make a big impact.

In such cases, positive reviews will form a comprehensive overview of your business beyond just your products or prices.

Showcasing Your Professionalism and Desire to Please

Of course, you can’t please everyone. There is a chance that a customer may be dissatisfied with your prices, your delivery process, or another part of your business entirely. If they share this in a review and give you a low rating, this can affect your whole online reputation.

However, it’s vital to keep this in perspective. If you have one weaker review for every 10 positive ones, customers are likely to recognize that they have a high chance of a pleasant buying experience.

Poor customer reviews give you an opportunity to demonstrate your commitment to the best service and learning from mistakes. If you can, respond to reviews in a polite, accommodating manner. Apologize for any errors your business may have made and offer to make things right: this might be a refund, a discount on future purchases, or another form of compensation.

Not only could this possibly appease the dissatisfied customer, it also demonstrates your focus on pleasing everyone. This can help to keep your reputation untarnished, particularly if good reviews far outweigh bad ones.

Likewise, if you handle weak feedback in a poor manner, the damage to your reputation will only be increased. It can be tough, but it’s vital to manage your emotional response to unflattering sentiments – otherwise, an aggressive rant will make you appear less than attractive to prospects.

Always treat unsatisfied customers with tact and courtesy. They may be exaggerating a negative experience or change their mind at a later date.

Perhaps the most important point is to stay calm when you see poor reviews of your business. With the right response, you can transform a customer’s experience of your brand, leave them more satisfied, and possibly cause them to edit their original feedback to write something better.

Still, negative reviews can still help to build trust. Customers checking reviews only to find them all filled with nothing but praise may become suspicious, and wonder whether they should believe anything written about your business. Sincerity matters, and a healthy ratio of good to bad reviews is nothing to worry about.

Increasing Engagement

Following on from the point above, your business shouldn’t feel restricted to responding to negative reviews only: interact with customers leaving positive feedback too.

This enables you to convey more of your brand’s personality and show appreciation of your customers. Independent hotels often thank most customers who leave kind words on TripAdvisor, but businesses in all sectors can take the same approach.

On one hand, it makes the reviewer’s effort feel worthwhile and shows that the business has taken notice of their feedback, Also, fellow customers will see the business in a positive light, which contributes to their entire view of the company.

Over time, a high response rate to positive and negative reviews will show you as a brand that really cares.

Online reviews are an integral part of marketing your business and managing your reputation. They should motivate you to make your company the very best it can be and may continue to attract newcomers to your business for years to come.

How Website Speed Can Make or Break Your Online Reputation

The easy access to information via smartphones has empowered Canadian consumers to make decisions faster than ever before, and they want to act upon these decisions straight away.

Any hurdles in accessing information such as slow load time of your website can negatively affect your online reputation.

Rise of Smartphone Use

According to Statista, 62.37% of the population in Canada used a smartphone in 2016. The Statista 2016 data showed:

• 54% Canadians compare prices of a product/service using a smartphone
• 67% Find the nearest store location
• 6% Check for discounts
• 44% Read reviews
• 21% Look at competitive product/service
• 61% Check availability
• 59% Compare features
• 1% Make a purchase

On-the-Spot Decisions

A Google report showed that 82% of smartphone owners used a search engine as the initial step to gratify at least one of their needs.

According to Google, Canadians, in particular, use a search engine at the exact time they want something. This means that they’re more likely to be loyal to their needs than to any brands or products that they’ve used before. 

An example of this demand to satisfy one’s need on-the-spot is the rise the search phrase “open now”. The search giant reported that search interest in the keyword phrase “open now” has increased 3 times since 2015.

Expectation to Get Products & Services Immediately

With the rise in smartphone usage, consumers’ expectation to get the products and services they need as soon as possible has also increased.

Canadian consumers, according to Google, aren't any more willing to wait even for a few days for their orders to arrive. They want to get the products or services as soon as possible. The tech giant reported that searches for the keyword phrase “same day shipping” has grown by 160% since 2015.

The Need to Know Where to Get Products & Services

Google research showed that consumers are using their smartphones as “anywhere” assistants, turning to their phones in search of stores where they can visit to get what they want prior to leaving the house – a phenomenon that renders store browsing close to oblivion.

According to Google, over the past 2 years, mobile searches for keywords “where to shop” and “where to buy” have increased by more than 100%.

Speed Equals Revenue

Whether your website visitor is a plan-ahead type, impromptu type or that last-minute type, each of these visitors all want the same experience: they want to get the information they want right here and right now.

The basic website load time can either make or break your brand reputation.

SOASTA’s report "The State of Online Retail Performance" released in Spring 2017 found the following key insights regarding site load time:

• Even as nearly half of all consumers browse their smartphones, only 1 in 5 complete transactions on mobile.
• Optimal load times for peak conversions ranged from 1.8 to 2.7 seconds across device types.
• Mere 100-millisecond delay in load time hurt conversion rates by up to 7%.
• Bounce rates were highest among smartphone shoppers and lowest among those using tablets.
• Optimal load times for lowest bounce rates ranged from 700ms to 1.2s across all device types.
• A two-second delay in load time hurt bounce rates by up to 103%.
• Pages with the lowest bounce rates had start render times ranging from 0.9 to 1.5 seconds.
• A two-second delay correlated with up to a 51% decrease in session length.

Google, for its part, reported that the average time it takes to fully load a mobile landing page is 22 seconds. Fifty-three percent of mobile site visitors, however, according to Google, abandon a site if it takes more than three seconds to load.

More than half of the overall web traffic, Google reported, comes from mobile. Despite this traffic lead, mobile falls behind desktop in terms of conversion rates.

Google researchers analyzed 900,000 mobile ads' landing pages in 126 countries. The researchers found that bulk of these mobile sites are slow and stuffed with too many features.

"Our research has been eye-opening,” said Daniel An, Global Product Lead, Mobile Web at Google. “For 70% of the pages we analyzed, it took nearly seven seconds for the visual content above the fold to display on the screen, and it took more than 10 seconds to fully load all visual content above and below the fold.”

You can check how your website fared in terms of speed at Test My Site – a free service offered by Google that analyzes your website in terms of speed and usability.

According to Google, these two are the top factors that affect site loading: number of site elements and number of images.

Researchers at Google said the high number of site elements results in greater site's weight and complexity. A typical webpage today, the researchers said, weighs 2,486KB and holds nearly 100 assets hosted on dozens of different servers – issues that contribute to slow loading.

The second factor that contributes to the slow loading of a page, the researchers said, is the high number of images. A typical page can contain logos, favicons and product images that can easily add up to two-thirds of a page's total weight – equivalent to hundreds of kilobytes. This results in cumulatively slow page loads throughout a session, the researchers said.

Reducing the number of elements and reducing the number of images in your site can make your site load faster.

Google researchers also found that webpages that have more images and other elements result in fewer conversions.

To speed up your site, a mere compression of images and text can make a big difference. Thirty percent of webpages, according to Google, could save more than 250KB through this simple process.

"It's no secret that shoppers expect a fast mobile experience,” An said. “If there's too much friction, they'll abandon their cart and move on. Today, it's critical that marketers design fast web experiences across all industry sectors. Consumers want to quickly pay bills on finance sites, get rapid results when they're browsing vacation reviews, and view an article immediately when they click through.”